Special Projects

Giuseppe Amato

In this Detour project, Amato chooses to follow the transient nature of a new architecture concept. An open japanese Moleskine notebook fixed as an austere container of thoughts in progress about Nautoscopio and freezes the time of the process between art and design, filled with early sketches and a to-do-list for an entire year of work.

Born in Palermo in 1970, took a degree in molecular biology at the University of Pavia in 1993. During a trip to Japan in 1994 he met the master Sori Yanagi, with whom he visited Villa Katsura in Kyoto. From that moment on he abandoned his research at the university and began to work with raw materials, endeavored to limit the use of technology and eschewed precious wood using only oak from trees die of old age. In 2004 he opened a studio/workshop in Milan with old machinery saved from an historic carpentry shop. Since then he has been conceived interiors, including furnishings for the Brioni flagship store in Milano, as well as private collectors' large-size libraries where to store old volumes, antiquities and treasure books.

Every projects pay attention to sustainability and play on contrast featuring wood, steel and iron. Most of the pieces among which canoes, mailboxes, amplifiers, chairs, tables, bookshelves, rack and kitchen systems, have been designed always as a site-specific installation or in a limited editions in private residencies. He had shows in Milan Furniture Fair, ICFF in New York ADC, Isetan Dep Store in Tokyo, "How To" group show as Parallel Event at 11th Istanbul Biennial and Detour Moleskine at the Museum Santral Istanbul. His new architectural series "Unexpected homes", dwellings conceived as installation of Public Art, present the first prototype Nautoscopio, that has been built in Palermo, Italy after the show in model scale 1:5 at the Green Energy Design Exhibition curated by Interni Magazine.